CE 2310

There's too much to say! For civil engineers, Jose Gomez is one of the best professors you can have! While the course had its difficult moments, it was absolutely manageable and enjoyable at that. What's funny is that statics comes up a little bit in the course, but there isn't many heavy calculations and you typically stay away from 3D (typically doesn't mean always though!).

For the class itself, the general setup is the following: On Tuesdays he gives a lecture, and he'll finish the lecture on Thursday and very quickly work some practice problems. There is a weekly homework assignment and during the weekend he releases the "formal write-up" assignment, which basically asks you to take a homework question you should already have done and write out your calculations and reasoning professionally. For the tests, while I have heard this varies by semester, there were 6 exams, and none were too difficult. At the end you have your final, which is much more difficult, but again, manageable.

As for why you should choose Gomez, he is one of the nicest, most genuine professors in the CE Department at UVA. Not only is he a nice grader, but he actually cares about his students caring about the subject. He teaches with such enthusiasm and emphasis that you can't help but feel like what your learning will actually make an impact (in which it really does). He also has an open door policy for his office hours, and he is generally available for all sorts of questions, no matter how miniscule or silly.

If you take this class, I would highly recommend doing it with Gomez. His only downsides is that he can work through the example problems a little too fast, but you do some of the same problems for your homework. I have had some questions from others asking about what you should remember from statics, and all I have to say is the following three statements: Shear and Moment Diagrams, F/M=0, and static determinancy. Outside of this is fair game.

Overall, manageable class with tough subjects, but an amazing professor who I couldn't recommend highly enough!

Professor Gomez is likely the most caring professor you'll ever meet. He wants you to understand the content and works with everyone individually in office hours or with personal circumstances. His writing is a bit hard to read, though he will never mind if you ask him to clarify what he wrote. The homeworks could be time consuming if you didn't fully understand the content in lecture, but otherwise it was fine. There were like 8 "Midterms"/Quizzes throughout the class, but they were short, often easy, and sometimes had extra credit questions worth 20-40 points. I highly recommend taking the class with Professor Gomez, especially if you are in Civil Engineering, as he is a great teacher and amazing to consult even after the class is over for advice on careers, capstone projects, or advanced structural engineering classes.